Shatkarma: What are they? Shatkarma are cleansing techniques (shuddhi kriyas). They are recommended to be done to prepare the body for yoga practices. They are named shatkarma because they are six (shat in Sanskrit) in number. In simplest words: these techniques are done to clean ingestion, digestion and excretory system of our body. These systems mean eyes, respiratory system, digestive system & excretory system. Just like when we take bath, we remove dead skin cells and other pollutants from our skin, shatkarma works on cleaning inside of our body. In yogic view, the process of shatkarma is done to remove [...]

Teach Yoga: Whatever your point of entry in the field of yoga as a student, once you have practised long enough, you get inspired to teach. The inspiration can be: from observing your yoga teacher, as next progressive step for growth in yoga or maybe to take yoga as a career. In all three, as the path you are choosing is Yoga, it comes with certain responsibilities. Why what is so special just because the field is yoga? The reason is simple: Yoga is the way of life, not just asana and pranayama. Though you may teach mainly these two, [...]

Yoga Certification Scheme The Yoga certification scheme by Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India is an important step to present a unified code of professionalism to, till now, the unorganized field of Yoga Teaching. The main aim of this scheme is to evaluate and certify yoga professionals to either as Level 1 (Instructor) or Level 2 ( Teacher). This raises an important question: Why a standard yoga certification scheme? Yoga is a way of life for personal growth But there is no denying that its health benefits with the gentle approach is what makes yoga popular. Even by practitioners who [...]

“Giving is the secret of abundance” — Swami Sivananda A few days back, after the weekly advanced class, one of our senior student asked me a question. “How do you improve my practice? It feels like I am stuck at same growth since last few weeks/months” Such question is, usually, asked by beginners. And questions is not specific to yoga only. It is across the health and wellness industry. The reason is that we start any health routine with certain goal/perception in mind. This is what drives us to be regular and consistent. But such phase doesn’t last long. Either the student [...]

With recent developments (like International Day of Yoga by UN) the spotlight is on the field of yoga. Overall, yoga has managed to survive and thrive for many decades now. This is mainly due to devout practitioners, who devote their life to their practice. What it was lacking was proper research into the field, common standards about teaching yoga (mainly asana and pranayama) as profession. Hopefully, in coming years that will change. As with any other field, which goes through large level changes and growth: This is both good and bad. :wiki Good bits: The good part is that this [...]

Under the updated syllabus and scheme details, this guide is no longer valid. Please refer to updated guide. Last Updated: January 2019. Yoga Certification : [This post is follow up post to what you need to know about voluntary yoga certification exam] Read: Which level to appear for - Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3? The first question after registering yourself for voluntary yoga certification examination is how to prepare for it? As a Yoga professional, you know theory as well as practical aspects but the doubt is: is it sufficient to clear the certification process? To have clarity [...]

This post details about voluntary yoga certification scheme of Quality Council Of India, under Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India. -Yoga certification QCI Though Yoga as field and practice is famous for quite some time, the recent surge is on various teacher’s training courses. This trend started with segregation of teacher’s based on how long they have trained for. This classification was done by YogaAlliance in the year 1997. Two most common classifications are RYT 200 and RYT 500, which in simple terms is teacher’s training course and advanced teacher’s training course. Yoga Alliance is a non-profit organisation, with its [...]